Crawl

Australiais known best for Neighbours, shrimps on the Barbe, “G’day mate”, and Hugh Jackman. It’s the land of sun and surf, not the setting for a stand out thriller. Well that’ll be your opinion until you see Crawl by twin brothers Paul and Ben China.

Set in a nameless location in the middle of nowhere Crawl has a simple, but effective plot. A hitman called “the Croatian” is heading home after doing a job for a local bar-owner. He runs his car off the road, goes to the nearest house and ties up a local barmaid in her own home while he plans how to get away.

Some audiences will find the lack of a complex, fully thought out plot as a major flaw of the movie. However  the film does what Thrillers are meant to do and thrills audiences, without adding any extra waffle or padding.

At only 80 minutes the simpleness of the plot is refreshing compared to recent releases that are all pushing the three hour mark. However, Crawl would have benefitted with increasing the running time a little in order to spend some more time on plot and motivation development. As it is currently cut it is not clear why the Croatian acts the way he does except simply because he can. It is possible that no rational was given to make audiences feel that the situation could happen to them, but this isn’t much of an excuse.

Although it sells itself as a film that makes audiences care more about the central characters it offers little more than the bare minimum of development. Half the film is dedicated to character development and there is little to show for it. Audiences are told that the waitress, Marilyin (Georgina Haig), is about to be engaged before she is taken hostage. This news is a thinly veiled technique to make us care more for her but has the opposite effect. Other characters are similar and feel more like plot devices than well thought out figures of fiction.

The only character who has something positive to say is the Croatian. Specifically made for actor George Shevtsov the Croatian is efficient, cold, and ruthless. Shevtsov’s performance feels like Javier Bardem Oscar winning performance as the lone hitman in No Country for Old Men.

Despite these criticisms what Crawl does it does very well. It will have audiences constantly on edge for what will happen next, which is what you want from a thriller. Paul China (who wrote and directed, while his brother produced) uses music and camera angles in a way that is reminiscent of Hitchcock. To build up the tension China only uses music at tense points and it is always the same butt clenching melody. This skill at creating consistent tension once the film gets going makes up for the thin plot and lazy character development since the film thrills.

The film is very much style over substance, but the style is so effective that it can be forgiven for this. China perfectly balances the use of gore, music, and suspense to keep audiences enthralled once the action gets going. A stronger plot and more filled out characters would have added more to the film, but they are certainly not necessary for this genre. If you want something that will get your heart racing see Crawl, if you want something full of character best look somewhere else.

Degree-2:2

The suspense and tension are all there

and at 80 minutes your attention won’t drift.  But more could have 

been done to flesh out the characters.

Flight

The chances of being in an airplane with at least one fatality is 1 in 29.4 million. That’s a lower chance than being struck by lightning (1 in 5 million) and how many of us can say that has happened to us? Despite the incredibly low chance of being in a plane crash Hollywood still loves to show terrifying aerial experiences. There has been Cast Away, Lost, Final Destination, and Horror at 20,000 feet to name a few. While Flight may have a crash that trumps the lot of them it also has more to offer audiences than just that thrill.

The film concentrates on the fictional crash of a domestic flight from Florida to Georgia. The pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) does a spectacular display of flying to save as many people as he can and becomes a national hero. Don’t worry this isn’t a spoiler as the film mainly focuses on the investigation into the crash. While this is going on Whip fears that they may discover his alcohol and drug abuse issues. The story is not at all about the crash, but is character piece on one man’s attempt to overcome his demons.

The film concentrates almost entirely on Whitaker’s struggle to not get caught for his drinking and drug use. Washington has received a well deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the maverick pilot. The 58 year-old actor manages to make audiences sympathise with Whitaker even though he is unfit  for the responsibility he takes on every time he enters the cockpit. Whitaker starts out as the ultimate president for the Mile High Club with sex, drugs, and alcohol all on the morning of a flight. However Washington’s subdued performance as the pilot’s life starts to unravel around him works because it doesn’t go for the easily sympathetic actions. Instead Whitaker refuses to acknowledge his problems and just continues to keep drinking and despite all this audiences want him to get away with it because he is so charming.

Although the film is not entirely, or even mostly, based around seeing the plane crash, it still deserves a mention. Director Robert Zemeckis’ last live action film was Castaway with Tom Hanks back in 2000 so the bar was set very high for his return. The director’s years with motion capture (Polar Express, A Christmas Carol) have not reduced his ability to have audiences holding their breath and gripping their seats. If you think you can handle a crash think again.

Not only does Zemeckis not pull any punches with the crash, but he also shows the drug taking in the film in graphic detail. Whenever Whitaker snorts a line of cocaine, which happens a lot, the shot doesn’t cut away. Instead we see Washington snorts a line (of powdered milk) on screen.  The same level of focus was used when Nicole (Kelly Reilly) injects heroin before meeting Whitaker in hospital after she overdoses.

Nicole is the love interest and although Reilly plays a convincing and sympathetic drug addict the character feels shoehorned to add some sex scenes to the plot. Flight is Washington’s one man show who is only briefly eclipsed by drug pushing best friend John Goodman.

Although the film started out with a exciting and turbulent pace, straight after the crash it settles down into more of a coast. The film focuses on development and unraveling of Whitaker’s character, but it may have been more interesting to have fleshed out some of the other characters a little more. Zemeckis also made the same mistake he did with Castaway and ended the film too late. Instead of leaving the audiences guessing Zemeckis decides to include a schmaltzy tie up of the loose ends, which ultimately makes less of an impact.

Degree-2:2

Overall this is an effective take on a genre that audiences may now be desensitised to.

Just don’t expect it to have a fast and furious pace for the entire 138 minutes.

Flight Trailer

Tron Legacy

There seems to be a rule in Hollywood for cult remakes; the budget is negatively proportional to the magic; as the budget increases the wit and charm found in the original deceases. This film is no different and with a budget of ten times as much as the classic, you can guess how this turns out.

For those who haven’t seen the first one there is a brief summary that explains how Kevin Flynn was able to go into a computer and discover ‘the Grid’ and all the computer programs that inhabited it.  He then goes missing for 20 years until his son Sam Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, enters the Grid to find him.

The huge budget that Disney gave the movie was not spent on the story, but on the stunning special effects, which successfully brings the Grid into the 21^st century. It does this with great action scenes that include exciting disc fights and light cycle chases. Along with the visuals there is a great sound track full of 80’s style synth that was written by Daft Punk and might be one of the best bits of the movie. Sadly apart from this, the rest of the film feels incredibly average.

The story is not very engaging to start with and we are left with only the action sequences to appreciate; unfortunately, this simply isn’t enough to distract from the dull and predictable plot. On top of this, with the exception of Olivia Wilde and Michael Sheen, who were both, enjoyable to watch, the rest of the cast was unremarkable. Garrett Hedlund was wooden and unemotional while Jeff Bridges felt all over the place. In pandering to the fans of the first film Kevin Flynn doesn’t seem to have changed in the 20 years he is trapped on the Grid, making his character vary between sensei like Obi Wan and stoned surfer (The Dude). Although his laid back attitude might have worked on a 30-year old man, it doesn’t feel quite right on someone in their 50s who surely must have lived through an awful lot in those long 20 years, so he seems foolish rather than trnedy. There was also a huge problem with the computer animated Jeff Bridges. The programme Clu, which Kevin Flynn creates when he enters the Grid is meant to look like the Jeff Bridges from the 1982 original. However the computer animation was lazily done and although Clu vaguely resembled a young Jeff Bridges, he looks like he has had one too many facelifts, as he appears completely lineless.  All these problems make the film feel like a Miss Universe pageant: it is great to look at, but lacks any real complexity, depth or true heart.

 

Degree: 2:2

Overall the film isn’t necessarily bad, it just isn’t good either. It feels very shallow and can’t recapture the magic of the original film and even those who haven’t seen the first one easily notice this.

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)

 

Catfish

Before I start it should be said that this film is better the less you know about it. As soon as you do any research it gives the whole game away; even the title spoils the twist. For this reason this article will be deliberately short and vague so that not too much is revealed. You will just have to trust me.   And when I say spoiler alert, stop reading if you must!

The film is a documentary that follows Nev Shulman as he creates a relationship with a family he meets on the Internet. His friend Henry Joost and his brother Ariel Schulman film the entire thing; Nev develops an email correspondence with an 8 year-old artist called Abby after she paints one of this published photographs. Through emails, phone calls and Facebook Nev soon gets to know the rest of Abby’s family who he jokingly dubs ‘The Facebook Family’. Nev even begins to have some sort of romantic relationship with Abby’s teenage sister Megan. Since this all happens online and over the phone, the whole audience can tell it won’t end well no matter how sweet the veneer. In fact the ending, (spoiler alert)

attempts to turn the film into a thriller that shows the darker side of the Internet and social networking; possibly this film should be shown to children in their personal development classes. That is if the film is an authentic documentary (spoiler over).

There has been a lot of debate about whether this film is a real documentary or just a marketing ploy. At one end of the spectrum the stars claim it is all real while critics claim it is simply a fake, or possibly somewhere in the middle with parts of it being authentic footage while the rest is a dramatisation of real events. I have my own theories, but will keep them to myself since how much you believe in the authenticity of the footage will effect how ‘mind-blowing’ the ending is.The film is well put together and uses a lot of computer imagery and cinematography (Google Maps, Facebook and SatNav) to bind the scenes together, which gives everything a more interactive feel. As well as that the characters Nev, Areil and Henry, are nice enough. They all seem like ordinary guys that don’t mean any harm. What brings the film down for me, however, is the ‘mind-blowing’ ending which severely lacks a ‘boom’. I was waiting for my mind to explode throughout the entire 87 minutes and then upon realising the big climax happened earlier felt a bit put out. It might be that this is a genuine documentary so that the ending does reflect real life and not an adrenaline fueled version of it, but it was still not as shocking as I expected. Giving the filmmakers their due they carefully handled an ending that could have been made into something more shocking and less heartfelt. However, I still wanted my mind blown as I was promised and am disappointed it did not happen.

‘Catfish’ is an interesting documentary, how authentic it might be is questionable, but that is also not that important. However, the ending was not nearly as personally shocking as expected and this disappointment reduces my opinion of the film. My advice, go in blind.

Degree- 2:2

Having been brought up with all the internet horror stories

the end delivered the bare minimum that I expected.

To real enjoy the film avoid all spoilers

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)

R.E.D

reviewed by guest lecturer Will Tooke

Another month brings out another comic book adaption. The playful, immersive odyssey of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and the subversive, ultra violent thrill ride of Kick-Ass are still fresh in my mind, I went to see RED with high hopes – after all, with an incredible cast of Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and your Grans favourite, Helen Mirren, what could possibly go wrong? Err, well, quite a lot actually.

Based on the DC comic written by Warren Ellis and the unfortunately named Cully Hamner, this movie version of RED is similar in name only. A cursory Google (I hadn’t heard of RED before either…) revealed that the scriptwriters had changed quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a purist – one of the greatest things about good movie adaptation of novels or books is how the screenwriter handles the source material. Think of 2001s About A Boy based on Nick Hornby’s novel. Gone – thank God – is the heavy handed, zeitgeisty sub-plot to do with Kurt Kobain’s death, a reason why it stands as an example where the film is better than the book. Of course, film adaptations don’t always work out for the best – 2009s Watchmen suffered terribly from an overlong script, and the fact that for some reason it never quite managed to live up to the spirit of the dystopian epic that is Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1986 graphic novel. Yes, screenwriting – particularly adapting works – is a difficult game indeed, one that demands subtlety in approach if not content.

The fact then that screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber take great big blundering axe chops to the original is a bad sign. Bruce Willis’ character, ex-CIA agent Frank Moses, survives from the original lineup. The rest are all new additions. Whereas the comic is apparently a darker, straighter story of murky political intrigue and shady secret service dealings, on celluloid RED is a much lighter, family friendly affair. It is, after all a 12 A, and I can’t help wonder if somewhere in the ether floats a grittier, original script, more faithful to the original, before the studio talked it down from an 18 or a 15 to a 12 certificate. It’s a real shame actually, because the core idea is a good one – old spooks come out of retirement to kick some butt after someone or other tries to have them killed. The cheap and easy way to make this family friendly of course is to a) have curiously bloodless fight scenes and b) add some humour.

Oh sweet Jesus, the humour.

In a big loud dumb action movies, there is nothing wrong with a few jokes. Brucie’s own Die Hard quadrilogy is the stronger for them, and cheesy jokes and lazy innuendo pretty much substituted plot for much of Roger Moore’s stint as Bond. But in RED, the cheesy jokes are ladled on like fondue. And it just gets incredibly annoying, right up to a silly pre-credits scene that sees Brucie wheeling John Malkovich through a Moldovan minefield in a wheelbarrow, whilst the latter clutches a nuclear bomb. Typing that out, it sounds pretty funny, like something out of under rated Cold War farce Top Secret! (Seriously, you must see it before you die), but after a few hours of cutesy posturing, my sense of humour failure was borderline terminal.

And even if the awful jokes had been exorcised from RED, I’m not so sure it’d have worked, either. The plot has more flabby twists than Ann Widdecombe’s routines on Strictly Come Dancing: to the extent that it’s unforgivably hard to follow, which is why I haven’t mentioned what happens so much. ‘So wait, now that guy isn’t a baddie?’ one little boy sat near me in the cinema said out loud, to no one in particular. His guess is as good as mine, frankly.  The story circles around something about the covering up of something bad that the now Vice President of the United States (perhaps?) did in Guatemala in 1981 whilst he was in the army. Now bearing in mind said V.P is played by Nip Tuck’s Julian McMahon, this is particularly hard to swallow seeing as McMahon would have been 13 in 1981. Yup, that particular plot hole bugged me so much, I looked up an actor’s actual birthday, just to give me something else to complain about.

I suppose I should provide a bit of a balance by saying that parts of the film are OK – the sight of Helen Mirren firing a huge machine is funny for a bit, and the whole thing is filmed well, each shot framed like a comic book pane. Bruce Willis does his trusty trademark ‘McClane smirk’ – the same facial expression since the good old days of Die Hard, back when Brucey had hair. The same smirk Brucey has done in pretty much every film he’s been in since 1986. If Bella Lugosi was cinema’s Man of a Thousand Faces, then Willis has become cinema’s Man of Just One Smirk. I’m being harsh on Brucey, he does the hand-to-hand combat fights very well, and as a protagonist he’s hard not to like. It’s just I can’t remember the last time he was truly stretched in a role. Perhaps in The Sixth Sense? Which was also the last time M. Night Shyamalan made a decent film. And that was a long, long time ago. In any case, the few good points don’t make up for the whole – in the same way that the excellent German motorway system doesn’t excuse the regime that created them.

I suppose the biggest crime is that this is perhaps the greatest example of recent cinema of a truly brilliant cast who are truly wasted. In the opening credits, there is literally not one actors name that popped up that I didn’t recognize and who isn’t good. Alongside the main four stars are Brian Cox, Karl Urban – two veterans of the Bourne Trilogy, as well as James Remar from TVs Dexter, Mary-Louise Parker from Weeds, Richard Dreyfuss, and the 93 year old Ernest Borgnine. I can only presume they were very well paid or just don’t care anymore.

Degree-2.2 If you like your films with lots bullets that pass in slow motion making a

WOOOSH noise, explosions that seemingly compete with plot holes

to see which one can be the biggest, then you’ll love this.  Otherwise you should probably

just stay away.

It narrowly escaped a third solely because Helen Mirren fires a big loud machine gun.

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)

 

Despicable Me

 

Animated films always seem to fit into two different camps; either they are awful cash cows (A Shark’s Tale, Shrek 3) or they are true labours of love (Toy Story 3, Shrek). It has become a rare find to watch an animated children’s film that takes the middle road, but ‘Despicable Me’ is it. Not revolutionary, but not something that has been quickly made to fill a gap in schedules.

‘Despicable Me’, like Pixar’s ‘The Incredibles’, is set in a comic-book like setting where villains exist, but strangely there was no caped crusader or masked vigilante in sight. In fact being a villain is it’s own profession with paid minions and a Bank of Evil to get loans from. Gru, voiced by Steve Carrell, is not the sort of villain that you would send Jack Bauer after; styled like a French cartoon character his most evil acts seem to be stealing monuments from Vegas or bursting children’s balloons. Saying this his big plot of the century is to steal the moon and then sell it back for fame and fortune and to help him with this he has the great inventor, cockneyDr Nefario, expertly voicedy Russell Brand. And of course he also has his army of yellow, worm like minions. These numeroud minions remind me of the game Lemmings – they act as very effective comic relief. With all the ‘Looney Tune’ like physical gags as well as cute voice work and costumes the minions are easily the second best part of the film, with the greatest part being the orphans Margo, Edith and Agnes. These 3 girls provide the heart of the film, as they are all so sweet together with Gru that they create the warmest moments that will melt your heart.

Outside of this, Gru-orphans dynamic the film ends up being pretty ‘run-of-the-mill’, which makes it rather dull at times. The supporting cast of Jason Segel and Julie Andrews were very good, but the story and script was just not complex nor mature enough. You may accuse me of being harsh given that this is a kids’ film, but many great movies for children have worked around this and managed to entertain both adults and children equally. There are a quite a lot of chuckles with some generally laugh out loud moments.  The 3D was also used exceptionally well. In fact it might have been the best use of 3D I have seen yet(apologies to James Cameron) but even with all this the whole production felt very middle ground. There was no new way of looking at the genre or the story or the characters. Maybe if it had come out 10 or so years ago it would have seemed slightly more original and impressive, but unfortunately with all the high caliber animation movie goers see at the moment, being adequate just isn’t good enough. That is not to say you should give this film a miss, you certainly should go and see it, but don’t expect too much from it. You will leave the cinema smiling, but will also forget the film as soon as that smile fades.

Degree: 2:2- a film with a lot of heart, if not much else, but worth seeing just for that.

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)

This Is Spinal Tap!

Spinal Tap has been credited with incredible cult status; it is 48^th in Empire’s 500 films of all time and got 96% from Rotten Tomatoes, a worthy feat by any means. Despite this, ‘This is Spinal Tap’ elicited mixed emotions from me.

‘This is Spinal Tap’ is a mockumentry with advert director Marty DiBergi (real director Rob Reiner) following fictional British rock band Spinal Tap as they tour the United States in order to promote their new album ‘Smell the Glove’. The group was originally started by childhood friends David St Hubbins (Michael Mikean) and Nigel Tufuel (Christopher Guest). They were later joined by bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), keyboard player Viv Savage (David Ruff) and an unprecedented number of drummers who all seem to die between tours. The entire band were in fact actors putting on English accents and adlibbing most of the script.

The film gives great mocking insight into the world of failing stardom, which certainly speaks to our generation if magazines such as ‘Heat’ or ‘OK!’ are anything to go by. It also looks into the style of fly on the wall documentaries, which again we are now more than familiar and fascinated with. It is sad witnessing the gradual decline of this band’s reputation and with it their confidence in themselves; this is made even more obvious when compared with spliced in  ‘archive’ footage of their best bits. This footage shows how the band once had all they wanted, but have since become irrelevant, a fact they fail to realise this. The movie is excellent at showing the band’s world and their subtle dynamics; we see how they argue and reconcile only to argue again. Orbiting the drama are other caricatures of the celebrity world, from the bumbling manager trying to keep it all together, to the interfering girl friend that believes she should take control of everything (remind you of any particular band member’s girlfriend?). The band themselves also mock celebrity culture with their public strops, inane backstage requests and inflated egos; celebrities clearly haven’t changed much in the past 16 years.

All of the characters are larger than life in order to make a point, but it is here where the comedy side of the film falls down for me. The gags very much had the feel of other films like ‘Wayne’s World’ and ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’, where everything that is said and done comes from very left field. Maybe I am just not what this movie is aimed at so I missed a lot of the genius behind it, but the jokes only made me chuckle a few times and for ‘the funniest film ever’ that is not a great score. This is disappointing as the film has a lot going for it, but without the humour it is just a wacky show that couldn’t hold my interest. By the end I found I was just waiting for the final number and it all to be over.

2:2- a cult classic that, for me at least, did not live up to expectation.

An accurate parody of celebrity culture, but not a funny one

and that is where the film missed out.

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)